Intelligent Thermostatic Radiator Valve

2nd Place Winner

Intelligent Thermostatic Radiator Valve

FRANCE

The Eisox Thermostatic Radiator Valve is a smart heating regulation system which autonomously controls the temperature inside each room of a house depending on human behavior, by using artificial intelligence algorithms and highly efficient human presence sensors. These sensors are able to detect both mobile and static persons in a room, allowing for optimal energy saving, comfort and flexibility. This new way of detecting human presence has been developed over three years and is able to run on low power devices, making it very cost effective. With future development, the Eisox Thermostatic Radiator Valve can serve as a base for a Smart Home, functioning as home security, human protection, air quality control and beyond.

How does Intelligent Thermostatic Radiator Valve use Internet Technology?

The EISOX solution utilizes Internet Technology by allowing users to control their radiator system independent of their current location. Using internet technology provides users simplicity and flexibility in controlling their system. With a Smart Phone app or a web browser, users will have complete control of their system and will be able to adjust the temperature in their house in real time.

The second usage of internet technology is also innovative. It will allow users to update their product automatically without any manual operation on their system. Each Thermostatic Radiator Valve will automatically download the new firmware from a remote server using the internet and will upgrade its own software. Internet brings facility to the users.

Why did you choose to invent Thermostatic Radiator Valve? What problem do you see that it can solve?

EISOX’s first goal is to make houses become intelligent. To achieve this goal, we asked ourselves which element is most essential in each room of a house. This way, we can better understand user’s expectations in making our product interact with them. We found that there was a thermostatic radiator valve in 80% of European’s houses. Moreover, we found that in those houses, there was an significant waste of energy due to heating regulation systems. All existing systems we found were either inefficient or complicated to use. This is why we decided to improve thermostatic radiator valves!

What is the practical application of Thermostatic Radiator Valve for the everyday user?

The main application of Eisox’s thermostatic radiator valve is to control the temperature in each room of a house depending on human behavior. By learning the user’s behavior, the thermostatic radiator valve will be able to automatically set the temperature in each room of a house depending on its current usage. Users will no longer be asked to control their heating system if they don’t want to. EISOX’s solution allows the user to no longer worry about how to set the temperature in order to have a comfortable house while still achieving significant savings.

Are there plans to produce Thermostatic Radiator Valve for the marketplace, or is it already a product that can be purchased/obtained?

We plan to distribute our product to our first customers during winter 2016. Because we are in a market that reaches hundreds of millions, we will need to get investors in order to mass produce our solution. Our goal is to launch a crowdfunding campaign to involve the customer in the product’s success and also get feedback about usage. Bakers will be our first customers and investors in launching Eisox’s product on the market.

Why would you consider Thermostatic Radiator Valve to be “innovative”?

We consider our product an important innovation in the way it differs from other regulation systems. Indeed, we can find advanced and easy to use systems on the market, which centralize temperature regulation but have a central regulation system that relies on approximate temperature regulation. We offer a major innovation with our product because it is the first solution which provides a precise room by room temperature regulation while also being an intelligent system that controls itself. Finally, we have provided the first system that is able to give comfort, simplicity and savings to users. EISOX is he first intelligent system which improves your comfort every day without doing anything!

What would winning IPSO CHALLENGE 2015 mean for you or your company?

We are working hard to create an essential element of a smart house; however, being an element doesn’t mean doing everything. This is why we believe communication between other devices using normative communication protocols is essential. Winning IPSO CHALLENGE would confirm that our vision and concept for future houses is coherent, that a smart home is going to be a network of objects interacting with each other to create an all-together intelligent system that interacts with users for users. Finally, it would assure international recognition for our project and boost its development.

If selected as the Grand Prize winner, how do you think you will spend the $10,000 prize?

EISOX is a quite ambitious project. Because we care about making the best product we can with state of the art technologies, we need to develop every key part ourselves. From AI development, mechanical specification and hardware development, our product needs some help to boost its development. If we win the Grand Prize, we will spend that $10,000 to help our project to become a reality. This prize would be used to help us begin prototyping and launching a pre-series. Winning this prize would be an excellent starting place to jump from the prototype world to the market world.

What would you like to see in the future for the Internet of Things?

Every company develops products dependent upon its own competencies and technologies, which is why it is not really possible for a company to develop a wide-range of products encompassing a wide-range of technologies. Therefore, we believe that every company has to stay focused on its own field of competencies and should be able to use other products as resources in order to achieve its goals. Building a smart house comes down to linking together different blocks in order to make them more efficient as a whole. With this idea, we want every product in the future to share its resources with others, thus creating intelligent and easy-to-use products, because sharing makes things stronger.

Why should more companies utilize IP?

Since the release of IPv6, each device is able to own a unique IP address which enables users to directly address a device. With IP, we can now control every device all around the world and use its resources in an easy way. IP is the way to break boundaries and to make the world smarter and more responsive using abundant resources. It is a revolution which enables infinite new usages for products, thus using IP is the way to make things smart.

Why did you decide to enter IPSO CHALLENGE 2015?

We heard about the IPSO CHALLENGE when we were looking for a universal communication protocol for the IoT. We entered the IPSO CHALLENGE because we are truly convinced that interoperability is the only way to make things truly smart. We also consider this challenge as a great opportunity to get international recognition for our product. Finally, because we are using 6LoWPAN and COAP for our product, it was logical for us to enter.